Light use gaming PC upgrade recommendations

[lkailburn]

You know I don't think it's even 2.0 Here's what the Asus site says:
"2 x PCIe x16 (blue @ x16 mode, black @ x4 or x1 mode) supports CrossFire Technology
2 x PCIe x1
3 x PCI"

I turned down AA and AF together, I'll do more thorough back to back tests using fraps

-Luke

EDIT: here's what i found in terms of PCIe comparisons:

"Summary of key parameters of the various PCI Express interfaces:

Base Clock Speed: PCIe 3.0 = 8.0GHz, PCIe 2.0 = 5.0GHz, PCIe 1.1 = 2.5GHz
Data Rate (per lane, per direction): PCIe 3.0 = 1000MB/s, PCIe 2.0 = 500MB/s, PCIe 1.1 = 250MB/s
Total Bandwidth (x16 link): PCIe 3.0 = 32GB/s, PCIe 2.0 = 16GB/s, PCIe 1.1 = 8GB/s
Data Transfer Rate: PCIe 3.0 = 8.0GT/s, PCIe 2.0= 5.0GT/s, PCIe 1.1 = 2.5GT/s"

But I don't really know if that means PCIe 1.1 would be maxed out already.

 

[Termie]

You know I don't think it's even 2.0 Here's what the Asus site says:
"2 x PCIe x16 (blue @ x16 mode, black @ x4 or x1 mode) supports CrossFire Technology
2 x PCIe x1
3 x PCI"

I turned down AA and AF together, I'll do more thorough back to back tests using fraps

-Luke

Confirmed: it's PCIe 1.0 x16.

Source: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/493

That's going to bottleneck the card in some games - it's equivalent to the x4 numbers in this scaling test: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5458/the-radeon-hd-7970-reprise-pcie-bandwidth-overclocking-and-msaa

Overall, however, I still think the CPU is going to be the bigger bottleneck here. Try using FRAPS again with both AA and AF on, and then with just AA off. See what it looks like and report back so we can get a better idea if the GPU is actually working hard or if the CPU is holding it back.

 

[lkailburn]

OK turned AA and AF back to full and tested. Then turned AA all the way off and tested.
The difference is pretty negligable. It's not a difference in FPS, it's a difference in lag duration lets say. Both with/without AA I average around 35 out in big worlds. I average 50-60FPS+ when in buildings/shops aka smaller environments.
With AA on full, it takes longer to 'catch up'. So lets say i leave a shop and enter the city of markarth(lots going on with multiple waterfalls etc) the fps in both cases drops to a low of 20, and if i start to walk around bounces back and again near 35. With AA on full this takes maybe 2 seconds? with AA off it takes maybe 1 second?

It also depends on what i'm "looking" at in game. If i turn around and stare at the door from a distance, i see 60FPS, turn around and just watch the sprawling city and i get 24fps(both with and without AA).

-Luke

EDIT: Just to test I turned off AF and didn't notice any changes in FPS or the lag i mentioned in the short testing. Although I can visually see the difference with/without AF. Happened to be near an angled pathway and could tell how blurry it was. Did before after screenshots. With/without AA i don't really notice a difference but i'm sure if i took some before/afters.

 

[Termie]

Ok, that's a little hard to figure out. I haven't heard of AA causing jumps in frames - it would usually just be lower frames all the time. AA shouldn't be affecting the CPU, but honestly, the problem you're talking about sounds much more like a CPU-related issue, because AA is applied in every scene and is always pulling down fps, while what you're describing is a drop or increase upon the change of scene, which has much more to do with CPU. While that could certainly impact a GPU too, it probably wouldn't differ based on the AA setting.

I'd advise you head over to the CPU forum for help on OC'ing the CPU. If you're hitting 20fps regularly, I don't think it's your GPU or the hi-res pack, especially if it was anything close to that before you had the hi-res pack installed.

 

[lkailburn]

Thanks for all your help Termie!

EDIT: LOL well I'll be. I went ahead and set all my CPU OC to manual, bumped up the FSB and OC'ed to a mere 2.7Ghz. Tested the same spot in game and saw a 3-4FPS bump. Tested a handful of times too and it was consistent. I'll need to find a cooler for this CPU, I'm only running the stock intel heatsink/fan lol.

 

[lkailburn]

Ordered the tried and true 212+. I was SOO tempted to go all out for a Noctua. I can't believe the airflow to noise DBa on those things..insane flow and minimal noise. But, for 20 bucks(after rebate) and all the reviews of the 212+ it'll be more than enough for this Q9300. Plus it'll carry over to 1155 if/when.

-Luke

 

[Termie]

Thanks for all your help Termie!

EDIT: LOL well I'll be. I went ahead and set all my CPU OC to manual, bumped up the FSB and OC'ed to a mere 2.7Ghz. Tested the same spot in game and saw a 3-4FPS bump. Tested a handful of times too and it was consistent. I'll need to find a cooler for this CPU, I'm only running the stock intel heatsink/fan lol.

Ordered the tried and true 212+. I was SOO tempted to go all out for a Noctua. I can't believe the airflow to noise DBa on those things..insane flow and minimal noise. But, for 20 bucks(after rebate) and all the reviews of the 212+ it'll be more than enough for this Q9300. Plus it'll carry over to 1155 if/when.

-Luke

Nice work, and good choice on a heatsink!

Your bus speed is 333 and your multiplier is 7.5. I assume your p35-based chipset can hit at least 400MHz, which would provide a CPU speed of 3GHz, a 20% bump. That would make a huge difference for this game.

My hunch is that you won't need a voltage increase for this, and that it won't actually require a larger heatsink, so you could give it a try now. Long term of course the 212+ is a great investment. The only thing to watch out for is the memory speed. You'll need to adjust the ratio to keep it at 800MHz. Luckily the ratio you need at 400MHz FSB is 1:1, which is easy to set and ideal for memory performance anyway. The only catch is if you are using 667MHz-rated memory, in which case I think you'd just need a 4:5 ratio or better yet a 6:5 ratio if it's available.

Good luck! Any questions, just ask, or post a new thread in the CPU forum to get more options.

 

[lkailburn]

Hi Termie, the memory in this is a matching pair of G.Skill PC2-8000 2GB sticks. CL5-5-5-15

Bumped up the bus to 395, CPU speed is now 2.96Ghz. Haven't run a stress test yet(and won't until I do some more tweaking and get the 212+ on) but already played skyrim and on the same scene, got a consistent FPS bump of 4-5 over the last test which was at 2.7Ghz and was an FPS bump of about 3. So now instead of an original FPS of about 25 in this one particular spot, i'm seeing about 33 or even a little more.
This is great news! And great incentive to sit down and really do some thorough reading about doing a stable and safe OC. If I can get this one particular ingame area to 35FPS or just above, I'll be extremely happy as it is by far the lowest FPS spot I've noticed in the game with all the current settings/mods.
At idle all 4 cores sit at about 43*C. Ambient temp is actually pretty low today, maybe 66*.

-Luke

 

[Termie]

Hi Termie, the memory in this is a matching pair of G.Skill PC2-8000 2GB sticks. CL5-5-5-15

Bumped up the bus to 395, CPU speed is now 2.96Ghz. Haven't run a stress test yet(and won't until I do some more tweaking and get the 212+ on) but already played skyrim and on the same scene, got a consistent FPS bump of 4-5 over the last test which was at 2.7Ghz and was an FPS bump of about 3. So now instead of an original FPS of about 25 in this one particular spot, i'm seeing about 33 or even a little more.
This is great news! And great incentive to sit down and really do some thorough reading about doing a stable and safe OC. If I can get this one particular ingame area to 35FPS or just above, I'll be extremely happy as it is by far the lowest FPS spot I've noticed in the game with all the current settings/mods.
At idle all 4 cores sit at about 43*C. Ambient temp is actually pretty low today, maybe 66*.

-Luke

Awesome! Based on those figures, you're getting close to 200% scaling on the CPU overclock. I'm not sure how that's even possible! I wouldn't count on getting that consistently, but it shows you had a pretty serious CPU bottleneck in that area of the game.

As for your RAM, it's actually a very high spec, and can easily handle this overclock and much more. It could take a 500MHz FSB with a 1:1 ratio so you're in the clear there. The only limit will be your CPU and/or motherboard. I think most folks get these chips up to about 3.2 easily, maybe a bit higher, but again, you'll need to get more advice on exactly how to overclock that chip, either by reading up on it or posting a new thread. This article will give you a start: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q9300_6.html

What is your load temperature with the 395FSB? If you don't know, use HWMonitor to keep tabs on maximum temps. At this point I'd try to keep it under 60*C, but again, I'm not sure what a safe limit is for this CPU. Did you try 400FSB and have it fail? If not, just go ahead and set it at that for now as long as your temps are in check. I believe it should work without additional voltage, and you may not have to push it any further if you're happy with performance.

 

[lkailburn]

Didn't try 400FSB yet, just picked an arbitrary number just shy. I ran Skyrim for ~10minutes and realtemp showed 59*54*62*62* on the cores. I'm sure some of it is partly due to the 4 year old intel fan, even with fresh AS5. I'll need to do a lot more reading on OC as I'm pretty rusty with the terms. Lots to read. I'll start with the xbitlabs article!

-Luke

EDIT: One setting I want to run by you and make certain is correct out the door is setting the PCIe frequency. I was reading the "How to guide" http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=47089 here and it says to set to 100mhz. I just want to be comfortable knowing that while changing the FSB and voltages etc, that with that PCIe frequency manually set my brand new 7870 is safe. I don't want to mess that one up lol.

 

[Termie]

Didn't try 400FSB yet, just picked an arbitrary number just shy. I ran Skyrim for ~10minutes and realtemp showed 59*54*62*62* on the cores. I'm sure some of it is partly due to the 4 year old intel fan, even with fresh AS5. I'll need to do a lot more reading on OC as I'm pretty rusty with the terms. Lots to read. I'll start with the xbitlabs article!

-Luke

EDIT: One setting I want to run by you and make certain is correct out the door is setting the PCIe frequency. I was reading the "How to guide" http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=47089 here and it says to set to 100mhz. I just want to be comfortable knowing that while changing the FSB and voltages etc, that with that PCIe frequency manually set my brand new 7870 is safe. I don't want to mess that one up lol.

Yes, you want to lock the PCIe frequency at 100MHz.

Your temps are OK - maybe wait until you install the new cooler to push it any higher. It will bring those temps way, way down. As it is you already have a nice overclock.

 

[lkailburn]

Played a bit more and all four cores were 65* so I'm going to dial it back down for the time being until the 212+ gets in in a day or so. Good to hear that the PCIe is safe with that setting checked. Lots more to read on OC. But I think even at 3Ghz i'll be happy. While palying just now in and out of caves/dungeons I stayed between 55-60+FPS.

-Luke

 

[Termie]

Played a bit more and all four cores were 65* so I'm going to dial it back down for the time being until the 212+ gets in in a day or so. Good to hear that the PCIe is safe with that setting checked. Lots more to read on OC. But I think even at 3Ghz i'll be happy. While palying just now in and out of caves/dungeons I stayed between 55-60+FPS.

-Luke

Out of curiousity, what's the core temp when the CPU is at stock?

Remember that you'll need to remove your motherboard to install the 212+ unless your case has an access cutout behind the motherboard, which, assuming it's from circa-2008, it doesn't. Just preparing you for the pain!

 

[mfenn]

What is your load temperature with the 395FSB? If you don't know, use HWMonitor to keep tabs on maximum temps. At this point I'd try to keep it under 60*C, but again, I'm not sure what a safe limit is for this CPU.

The 45nm process used on the Yorkfields was pretty forgiving. TJmax is 100 C, so you can easily push it to 70-75 C without fear of damaging the chip.

 

[lkailburn]

Well son of a !$^#@.

Came back upstairs and went to wake up the PC after it had gone to sleep and no video.
Rebooted and got 1 long beep then 3 short beeps. Looked this up and its either memory or video card.
Pulled out one of the sticks of memory and was able to boot into bios. Everything had reset to factory. So i set the sata back to ahci and etc and now i'm getting this damn "Reboot and Select Proper Boot device".
Double checked the bios settings, still nothing. reset the cmos and still nothing. disconnected my two other drives and just left the SSD and still nothing.

And of course I just loaned my external HDD hookup that i usually use for testing drives today so I have no way of testing the SSD in another PC for the moment. I'll see if I have a LiveCD in the car

Damn

Luke

EDIT: Oh and when I looked in the case, the giant HIS sticker on the card had almost fallen off. Not a huge deal but kind of salt in the wound

EDIT 2: LiveCD works. Had Ubuntu 11.10 handy. Was able to load it and mount the SSD. File structure looks intact.

 

[lkailburn]

Cmos date and time were wrong today when I booted it to start debugging again. I'll pick up a new mobo battery well just because they are cheap and this is the orig.

Currently in Ubuntu LiveCD transferring everything from the SSD to another drive. As soon as that's done I'll attempt a windows repair or something. Would suck to have to format and reinstall, i've only had the SSD in there for less than a year.

Luke

 

[Termie]

Hmmm, this is unfortunate. I don't think it has anything to do with the GPU, however. It could be that the overclock was not stable - had you set it back to stock before putting it to sleep?

A couple of possibilities:
(1) a dead CMOS battery could cause these problems, so changing that out is a good idea.
(2) you may have a problem with that SandForce drive - the failure to be recognized is classic SandForce. Are you sure you went back and selected the correct boot order AND hard drive order? By disconnecting all other hard drives you are effectively taking care of this issue, but you should check just in case.
(3) do you still have your old video card to test with, just in case it's a video card problem (which I don't think it is)?
(4) you said you removed one stick of RAM to get back into the BIOS. Will it boot into the BIOS now with two sticks? If not, you have a bad stick of RAM.

Good luck and come back with questions - I really don't think anything you did during overclocking was extreme enough to cause this, so it's probably just a coincidence.

 

[Ketchup]

It will be exciting to see what happens when you get the new heatsink installed. Since you are in upgrade mode, why don't you get another 4 GB of RAM? I am sure your SSD will be thanking you for it.

 

[lkailburn]

Hmmm, this is unfortunate. I don't think it has anything to do with the GPU, however. It could be that the overclock was not stable - had you set it back to stock before putting it to sleep?

A couple of possibilities:
(1) a dead CMOS battery could cause these problems, so changing that out is a good idea.
(2) you may have a problem with that SandForce drive - the failure to be recognized is classic SandForce. Are you sure you went back and selected the correct boot order AND hard drive order? By disconnecting all other hard drives you are effectively taking care of this issue, but you should check just in case.
(3) do you still have your old video card to test with, just in case it's a video card problem (which I don't think it is)?
(4) you said you removed one stick of RAM to get back into the BIOS. Will it boot into the BIOS now with two sticks? If not, you have a bad stick of RAM.

Good luck and come back with questions - I really don't think anything you did during overclocking was extreme enough to cause this, so it's probably just a coincidence.

1. No go after replacing the mobo battery
2. double checked boot order and boot priority(when i had all the drives in. you're correct when pulling out the additional drives it removed the bios option for hdd priority. Also tried both IDE and AHCI for Sata.
3. swapped in the old 8800gts and same results.
4. oddly, stuck the other stick of ram back in and it boots into bios the same now, with all 4GB detected. Still no go on the OS though

I'll look into what others have done with similar sandforce issue.

-Luke

 

[Termie]

1. No go after replacing the mobo battery
2. double checked boot order and boot priority(when i had all the drives in. you're correct when pulling out the additional drives it removed the bios option for hdd priority. Also tried both IDE and AHCI for Sata.
3. swapped in the old 8800gts and same results.
4. oddly, stuck the other stick of ram back in and it boots into bios the same now, with all 4GB detected. Still no go on the OS though

I'll look into what others have done with similar sandforce issue.

-Luke

Just to confirm, was the CPU overclocked when it failed to wake from sleep?

Also, since I'm not familiar with the Ubuntu LiveCD, can you confirm that it's actually running an OS with video output on your system? If so, it would seem there hasn't been damage to the motherboard, CPU, or video card, and that it's likely an SSD issue.

 

[lkailburn]

Sorry forgot that one. Yes the CPU was still OC'd to 2.96Ghz at 395. I had intended to dial it back down, got sidetracked, had dinner etc while it had gone to sleep.

Ubuntu livcd runs a 'full' linux GUI OS with video output. Everything seems like it's working just fine cpu/mobo/ram/video in the live cd. Even the SSD was mountable. I stuck in another sata drive this morning and copied all my data from the SSD to the spare sata drive. So even the SSD is 'working' but not bootable.

Asus bios version is still the same. It's an older version, but it's what i've been running forever.

Couple roads I can go down.
Maybe pull the SSD onto my laptop and verify it's got the newest firmware from Adata.
Try running a windows repair on the SSD and see if that makes it bootable.


-Luke

 

[Termie]

Good to hear the system is actually running and you're getting video output. If you have a spare SATA drive, you could try installing Windows to it and see if the system can boot into Windows. Don't connect it to the Internet so it doesn't try to register your already-registered license.

How would you connect the SSD to your laptop? Do you have a 2.5" enclosure? If you mean attempting to boot the laptop from the SSD, well, that would get to the heart of the problem straight away. If it can't boot, it's the SSD (but note that you'll need to be in AHCI mode for it to boot).

 

[Ketchup]

I have had an issue with AHCI before. OS would not boot correctly. I was amazed that the windows 7 disk was able to fix it. All I had to do was sit back and watch.

 

[lkailburn]

Hey Termie - I have an enclosure that I use for testing both data and IDE drives.
Ketchup- you mean the windows repair?

Thanks guys

 

[Ketchup]

Ketchup- you mean the windows repair?

Yes